China’s central govt agencies reduce official expenses

BEIJING — The 2019 budgets released by China’s central government agencies revealed the central government’s efforts to cut official expenses and increase budget transparency.

Some 102 central government agencies have released their 2019 budgets as of April 2, planning to reduce their “Sangong” spending, or expenditures on official overseas trips, vehicles and receptions, this year.

Of them, the Ministry of Finance’s budgeted “Sangong” expenditure was 54.5 million yuan (about $8.11 million) this year, down 4.34 percent from 2018. That of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was squeezed 5.45 percent to 92.48 million yuan.

The country has earmarked 8.11 billion yuan from this year’s central budget for central government agencies’ “Sangong” spending, down 3.8 percent from one year earlier, according to the budget bureau of the finance ministry.

The country will increase the revenue of the central government and reduce expenditures this year. It vowed to cut the “Sangong” expenditures by 3 percent this year, according to the government work report.

China started to release its central government agency budgets separately in 2009 and later their “Sangong” expenditure budgets, amid efforts to increase budget transparency and ward off concerns over budgetary abuse by officials.